Pomegranate for Statin Users, Magnesium for Cancer-Free Colons, Cialis for Diabetic & Healthy Women and Protein Supplementation for 0.81kg More Muscle & 13.5kg More Strength Gains Than Placebo (Data From Meta-Analysis)

As the data in the graphs at the bottom shows, only vigorous physical activity (right), yet not moderate (middle), let alone light physical activity (left) will help kids to stave off the bad visceral body fat, which increases their waist line from year to year. The photo in the background was by the way taken in 1989 on Orchard Beach, in the Bronx. If I remember correctly that's 6 years before the release of Nintendo's first "Game Boy". And yeah, I got one and it really doubled if not tripled my sedentary time!

7 minutes! That's the SuppVersity figure of the week and a number that should actually ring a bell with everyone of you who is following my advice and pays a daily visit to the SuppVersity Facebook Wall. "Seven minutes" that's what scientists from the University of Alberta and their Canadian colleagues believe would be the amount of "vigorous physical activities" our kids should get (Hay. 2013). I am not sure, if those scientists are still youths, but assuming they are not, I wonder if they cannot remember the amount of "vigorous activity" (which was back in the day simply called "play") they themselves or at least their parents or grand parents got, in the days when you still had to physically kick a ball, if you wanted to play soccer with your friends.

I mean, it's already bad enough that today's kids spend 70% of their time with sedentary activity, only 23% with light activity (like walking from the sofa to freezer ;-), 7% with modest and only 0.6% with vigorous physical activity, wouldn't it be wise then, to rather shoot for the stars and work towards a much higher amount of vigorous activity? After all, even Hay's own study shows that only vigorous activity was associated with a reduced waist circumference and lower markers of metabolic disease (see illustration on the right).

Even if the kids don't make it to the moon, but over to the neighbor's basketball hoop or a public playground that would be a major improvement over the 'exhausting' walks from the Playstation to the fridge and back, wouldn't it?

• Pomegranate the better statin? Adding pomegranate phytosterol (β-sitosterol) and polyphenolic antioxidant (punicalagin) to a statin and reduce adipose tissue ROS production by a whopping 73%!  In their most recent paper Mira Rosenblat, Nina Volkova, Michael Aviram report that the administration of Simvastatin (15 μg/ml) to macrophages in the petri dish did only only "modestly decreased macrophage reactive oxygen species (ROS)" (Rosenblat. 2013), the presence of punicalagin (15 or 30 μM) almost 'extinguished the fire' cutting back inflammation dose-dependently by another 61% or 79%.
  
  

  

  As a regular here at the SuppVersity yo will still be aware that Pomegranate does also contain a potent plant version of CLA, called CLnA, no? Well then go back and read the full article!

  Intriguingly, β-sitosterol alone showed had minor pro-oxidant activity, when it was administered to the J774A.1 macrophages cell line the researchers from The Lipid Research Laboratory in Haifa (Israel) were analyzing,
  

  "the combination of simvastatin, β-sitosterol and punicalagin, clearly demonstrated a remarkable 73% reduction in ROS production."

  So what's the use of the statin, then? After all the scientists also found (but rather not mention in their abstract) that the combination of β-sitosterol and punicalagin actually suppressed macrophage cholesterol synthesis as effectively as low dose Simvastin or high dose Pravastatin (Click here to read about pomegranate in the SuppVersity news)
• Organo-Magnesium stops colon cancer in its tracks by inhibiting inflammation, and the findings a group of researchers from the Gifu University Graduate School report in a soon-to-be published paper are not surprising. After all many epidemiological studies studies like Folsom & Hong (2006), for example, have already shown that there is a -23% reduced risk of developing colon cancer for 55-65 year-old Swedish women in the highest vs. lowers quantile of magnesium intake. Earlier this year Wark et al. conducted a randomized trial and meta-analysis of the hitherto published studies and found:
  

  "Our findings support the hypothesis that higher intakes of dietary magnesium are associated with lower risk of colorectal tumors. The consumption of magnesium-rich foods may be a new avenue to explore further in the search for cancer-prevention strategies." (Wark. 2013)

  Tabs or capsules? A 2010 study has the answer to the question which form of supplemental minerals is the best for you. Roswitha Siener and her colleagues from the University of Bonn in Germany found that magnesium oxide from effervescent tablets is better absorbed than from capsules and you can be pretty sure that similar results will be found for other forms of magnesium. My advice would yet be: Save the money and just go for plain magnesium citrate powder.
  The meta analysis yielded 13% lower risk of colorectal adenomas and 12% lower risk of colorectal cancer for every additional 100mg of magnesium per day. This does yet not mean that by eating pounds of magnesium you could render yourself 'cancer proof', but it is good evidence to make sure to get at least the into the 380-500mg range. And if you want to supplement, you really won't need the organ-magnesium Kuno et al. produced by mixing magnesium oxide (0.22 g), citric acid (0.55 g), malic acid (0.55 g), and glycine (0.22 g) - unless you can't tolerate it, cheap magnesium citrate will do just as well.
  
• Taldalafil for insulin resistant and healthy post-menopausal women?! (Murdolo. 2013) A group of European scientists have found that the administration of 10mg of Taldalfil (the notorious PDE-5 inhibitor in Cialis) to both diabetic and healthy controls led to
  
  • an increase in permeability surface area product for glucose , and
  • skeletal muscle interstitial lactate levels r
  The forearm glucose uptake, as well as the arterial lactate levels showed differential responses, while there was a trend for increased glucose uptake in the healthy controls, the latter was absent in the diabetic group. The profound decrease in arterial lactate levels in the diabetic patients, on the other hand, was not present in the healthy controls, whose lactate levels had already been in the normal range (see figure 1).
  
  

  

  Figure 1: Effects of 10mg of Taldalafil on arterial and intramuscular lactate concentration (Murdolo. 2013). The increase in intramuscular glucose oxidation (evidenced by the lactate that is generated during this process) could even be of interest to healthy women (and men?).

  Based on these findings, Guiseppe Murdolo and his colleagues argue that the results would suggest that acute Tadalafil administration can increase the capillary recruitment and nonoxidative glucose metabolism, without having consistent effects on forearm blood flow and regional lipolytic rate. However...
  

  "[...] notwithstanding the lack of measurable changes on forearm glucose uptake, the microvascular response to tadalafil emerged as an independent predictor of muscle glucose disposal in both T2D patients and insulin-sensitive controls."

  Well, and if those effects don't reach statistical significance, maybe 'others' will. After all a 2003 study by Caruso et al. suggests that Taldalafil can also increase "the frequency of sexual fantasies and of sexual intercourse, and enjoyment" (Caruso. 2003) in a group of  53 pre-menopausal women (age 22–28) years affected by arousal disorders. Maybe we should simply put Taldalfil into the drinking... ah, I am just kidding ;-)
• Finally! Scientists determine 'exactly'*rofl* how much more muscle you can gain with supplemental protein (Cermak. 2013). I hope I do not have to point you towards the irony in the headline of this On Short Notice item. If this ain't your first visit to the SuppVersity you should by now be aware that calculations like add 1g of protein per day and gain x-amounts of lean muscle mass per month, year or whatever timespan are nonsensical and will provide, if anything, a very general orientation.
  
  That said, it is still interesting to see the actual results Naomi M Cermak et al.'s quantitative meta-analysis of 22 studies, of which 77% were conducted with untrained individuals (64% with young trainees) produced. Most studies, which had a duration of 6-24 weeks (median: 12 weeks), used 3-5 x whole body workouts / splits coupled with milk (mostly whey) protein supplementation in amounts that ranged from 10g to 106g - keep that in mind when you think about how 'exact' the following figures can actually be:
  

  • 

    Size-wise and even more so strength-wise Arnold could still benefit from a protein shake after a workout. When it comes to the increases in type I and type II fiber CSA, his age could however put a spoke in his wheel.

    Fat free and fat mass - Compared with the placebo, protein supplementation significantly augmented the gain in FFM during prolonged resistance-type exercise training (weighted mean difference: 0.69 kg). A subgroup analysis for age showed that protein supplementation was beneficial for both the young and the old trainees, but that the total effect size in terms of fat free mass gains were ~1.7x higher in the young subject (+0.81 kg) than in the older ones (+0.48 kg;) subjects.
    
    What I find particularly surprising is that the subgroup analysis also revealed that training status had no significant and what's more, if anything a beneficial effect on the effect sizes in the young untrained (+0.75 kg) and trained subjects (+0.98 kg), respectively.
    
    As far as fat loss is concerned the scientists did not record any statistical significant differences compared to placebo and that despite the fact that the placebo in most of the 22 studies was a sugary carbohydrate drink.
  • Muscle fiber cross sectional area - As the gains in lean mass already suggest, the cross sectional area (CSA) of the muscle fibers increased: By ~ 212µm² in the type I fibers and 291µm² in type II fibers. Unfortunately, both the increases in type I and type II fibers were statistically significant only in the young trainees.
  • 1-RM Strength - The performance for the one-rep maximum (1RM) on the leg press improved across the board (+13.5kg more than in placebo) and that did work almost equally well for younger (+14.4kg) and older trainees (+13.1kg).
  I will leave it up do you what you want to do with this data and whether you think that studies like this are actually useful for the individual practitioner who does not - contrary to way too many dietitians - have to be convinced of the benefits of protein supplementation on top of the low 0.8g per body weight the dietary guidelines recommend.

That's it another saturdaily installment of On Short Notice and in case you feel that you could use some more educative news, tomorrow is another day ;-)

References:

• Caruso S, Intelisano G, Lupo L, Agnello C. Premenopausal women affected by sexual arousal disorder treated with sildenafil: a double-blind, cross-over, placebo-controlled study. BJOG. 2001 Jun;108(6):623-8.
• Cermak NM, Res PT, de Groot LC, Saris WH, van Loon LJ. Protein supplementation augments the adaptive response of skeletal muscle to resistance-type exercise training: a meta-analysis. Am J Clin Nutr. 2013 Nov 7.
• Folsom AR, Hong CP. Magnesium intake and reduced risk of colon cancer in a prospective study of women. Am J Epidemiol. 2006 Feb 1;163(3):232-5.
• Hay J, Maximova K, Durksen A, Carson V, Rinaldi RL, Torrance B, Ball GD, Majumdar SR, Plotnikoff RC, Veugelers P, Boulé NG, Wozny P, McCargar L, Downs S, Lewanczuk R, McGavock J. Physical Activity Intensity and Cardiometabolic Risk in Youth. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2013 Sep 10:1-8. doi: 10.1001/archpediatrics.2013.1028.
• Kuno T, Hatano Y, Tomita H, Hara A, Hirose Y, Hirata A, Mori H, Terasaki M, Masuda S, Tanaka T. Organo-Magnesium Suppresses Inflammation-Associated Colon Carcinogenesis in Male Crj: CD-1 Mice. Carcinogenesis. 2013 Nov 3.
• Murdolo G, Sjöstrand M, Strindberg L, Lönnroth P, Jansson PA. The Selective Phosphodiesterase-5 Inhibitor Tadalafil Induces Microvascular and Metabolic Effects in Type 2 Diabetic Postmenopausal Females. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2013 Nov 1.
• Rosenblat M, Volkova N, Aviram M. Pomegranate phytosterol (β-sitosterol) and polyphenolic antioxidant (punicalagin) addition to statin, significantly protected against macrophage foam cells formation. Atherosclerosis. Available online 31 October 2013.
• Siener R, Jahnen A, Hesse A. Bioavailability of magnesium from different pharmaceutical formulations. Urol Res. 2011 Apr;39(2):123-7.
• Wark PA, Lau R, Norat T, Kampman E. Magnesium intake and colorectal tumor risk: a case-control study and meta-analysis. Am J Clin Nutr. 2013 Sep;96(3):622-31. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.111.030924. Epub 2013 Aug 1.

Mercury, From Fish to Toenail; Less Testosterone Needed W/ TRT + Tongkat Ali; R,R-Monatin the Next Stevia From South Africa! Plus: Magnesium Protects Mitochondria from LPS & Caffeine Arteries from HIIT Induced Platelet Activity!

Image 1: Looks like the Terminator was concerned about "bone" health, maybe he should consider Tonkgat ali as an addition to his TRT... or whatever regimen;-)

If you want to, you can call today's news a special installment of "On Short Notice", I have already had a couple of interesting news and before I am piling up another truckload, I thought I could make at least some of you happy and put a handful of them out before the Super Human Radio & SuppVersity Science Round-Up on Thursday (you better make time to listen live, Thursday, 12PM/EST and download the first installment if you haven't done so, already ;-) and the "official" Saturdaily installment of "On Short Notice", here at the SuppVersity.

So let's see what we have here: Contrary to the order in the headline we will check out your toenails later, after all, I don't know what they look like and don't want to kill your appetite so that you cannot fully appreciate the findings of Fry et al. who discuss the potential application of an extract from the bark of Sclerochiton ilicifolius A.Meeuse as an all natural sweetener that's probably at least as, if not sweeter than stevia and - you guessed it - 100% calorie free! The same, i.e. being calorie free is obviously true for magnesium aspartate... whatever, in view of its potent protective effects against lipopolysaccharide induced mitochondrial damage and decay, you should not care about that, anyways.  And despite the fact that I would hope that the same goes for the minor pro-thrombotic effects of interval training, there may be one or another of the SuppVersity readers who's having issues with platelet activity already and will therefore be relieved to hear that a cup of coffee before your workout will not increase, but rather decrease the risk of thrombosis in response to the post-exercise increase in platelet activity.

You don't want to miss this week's installment of the joint Super Human Radio + SuppVersity
Science News Roundup - the show airs each Thursday, 12PM/EST (tune in live!)

The latter, i.e. the risk of thrombosis would by the way be even higher, if you were one of Xun et al.'s study participants who consumes one or more servings of fish per day. This would place you at greater risk of having high toenail mercury levels and with those being representative of whole body and tissue mercury levels you would already have higher baseline platelet activity than Mr. or Mrs. Healthy Average Joe, which would probably be a reason for your doctor to tell you that he cannot, by any means, put you on TRT (testosterone replacement therapy) - and that even if you were about as hypogonadal as the castrated rats in the Saadiah Abdul Razak study from the latest issue of Evidence Based Complementary Medicine. A study by the way you could print, show it to your doctor and say: "Look, I don't want to lose my muscle and break my bone, so let's do this you give me a script for low dose TRT and I get myself some quality Eurycoma longifolia extract and we will see how my values look like in 6 weeks from now." 

You see, as usual, even doctors can learn something, here at the SuppVersity so let's not put them on the rack for another paragraph or two and start right with our first item for today:

• 

  Image 2: Could the bark of these twigs from a spiny-leafed, hardwood shrub from South Africa hold a likewise natural stevia alternative?

  Is R,R-Monatin the new stevia? I know you all love your stevia, but there are people who simply hate the taste and still don't want to resort to any of the dubious sugar alcohols let alone the 100% artificial sweeteners, who may be interested that John C. Fry and a couple of other researchers published ad paper on a novel all natural sweetener from the bark of a South African spiny-leafed, hardwood shrub that goes by the name of  Sclerochiton ilicifolius A.Meeuse (Fry. 2013).
  According to the Fry et al., the compound has a potency above 3000 at 5% sucrose equivalent, which would make it (theoretically) even sweeter than stevia. Since the latter hit the market, we do yet all know how unrealiable these theoretical values are so that we will probably have to wait until the first monatin-based sweeteners become available - and you as a SuppVersity would be the first to know what's in there ;-)
  If we assume that there are no hitherto undisclosed health issues with monatin and it does in fact taste sweet and not disgusting, metallic or whatever, it is also likely that we are going to see new "proprietary" blends of stevia + monatin, similar to their artificial counterparts you still see in Coke Zero & Co - the quasi "natural" way to get as close as possible to the "true sugar taste", people are still craving, these days... if they don't hurry, I do yet doubt that there will be a market for products like that very long, as we are more or less trained to crave the "real sugar" taste, but this would be the topic for another blogpost ;-)

• 

  Figure 1: Effect of different doses of pre-supplementation with magnesium aspartate on markers of LPS induced mitochondrial decay, antioxidant activity and oxidative damage (data calculated based on Ahmed. 2013)

  250mg/day magnesium counter the metabolic derangements from lipopolysaccharide (LPS) intoxication When Lamiaa A. Ahmed added 20mg/kg or 40mg/kg (~125mg or 250mg in human equivalents) of magnesium aspartate to the chow mice that were pretreated with LPS injections, the researcher from the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Cairo found that this regimen restored body temperature (low dose) and heart rate (high dose) of the profoundly inflamed to normal, restored the lowered glutathione levels (both doses) and reduced (low dose) and normalized (high dose) the elevated creatine kinase (marker of cell damage) and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS; marker of oxidative damage) levels that had been elevated by the lipopolysaccharide treatment (Ahmed. 2013).
  The ATP:ADP ratio, the activity of the sodium potassium pumps and the creatine phosphate levels (CrPh protects the cell wall from damage as you remember from a previous installment, right?) were not completely restored to, but the pathological changes were minimized dose-dependently. In conjunction with the normalization of the lactate to pyruvate ratio, a sign of either exertional exercise or - if it occurs at rest, as it does here - mitochondrial failure, these observations indicate that Mg therapy could be a reliable protective agent in LPS-induced cardio- and general myotoxicity. In that it should be noted that higher, but not exorbitantly high (250mg is roughly 2/3 of what you should aim to get from our diet everyday, anyway) doses were more effective in reducing cell membrane damage as well as in improving the intracellular acidosis, energy production, oxidative stress and Na+,K+-ATPase activity and corresponded with a better perseverance of the mitochondrial ultrastructure.
  And while Ahmed sees the main application of Mg aspartate therapy in "critically ill" patients, I would say that the large group of patients (and non-patients) with other pathologies such as a leaky gut would benefit as well, since the defective gut barrier opens the door for the "excrements" of your gut bacteria, to induce all sorts of pathologies including mitochondrial damage and decay, but also depression, obesity, diabetes, etc. (Maes. 2008; Musso. 2010)... and before I forget to mention it is not unlikely that cheap magnesium citrate (if tolerated) would do the job just as well - maybe in a slightly higher dosage of say 300mg per day (best taken in divided doses with food).

• 

  Image 3: Coffee is full of wonders ;-)

  Antithrombotic effects of caffeine blunt platelet activity in response to interval training The use of 3mg/kg (equiv. to ~1 large cup of strong coffee or 2 smaller cups of regular coffee) of caffeine as an ergogenic aid during aerobic interval training cannot just improve your performance, it will also prevent the pro-thrombotic platelet function activation that occurs during exercise. That's the somewhat surprising finding of the one of the latest studies from the Health Innovations Research Institute at the School of Medical Sciences on the campus of the RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia (Whittaker. 2013).
  Whether this effect is of any importance to you certainly depends on your personal health. Personally, I would say that it is negligible for the vast majority of people who engage in strenuous athletic activities, if you belong to a risk group where platelet function is either high (risk of developing thromboses) or low (risk of bleeding) you may want to keep these results in mind.
  And if you don't care about platelet function, you may be considering to have another cup of coffee, when I tell you that ~3 cups per day appear to offer some protection against skin cancer, parkinson's and non-alcoholic-fatty-liver disease (click on the links to read the full stories on the SuppVersity Facebook Wall).

• 

  Image 4: Remember last week's post on the mercury in fish and how it's not simply excreted with the selenium, let alone the cysteine it's bound to? It looks like the toenails of young Americans would confirm those lab results.

  Something fishy about toenail mercury levels I guess all of you will remember my "shocking" post about the mercury toxicity from fish (cf. "Mercury in Fish NOT Harmless, Regardless of Cysteine, Selenium, EPA or DHA!"), this one could actually go as sort of a follow up post, as it deals with the real-world consequences of mercury exposure and the subsequent deposition of the heavy metal in the toe nails of the 4,344 American male and female participants (age 20–32y) in the CARDIA Trace Element Study researchers from the Gillings School of Global Public Health and School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina have recently examined (Xun. 2013).
  I know, it may sound gross, but toenails have, among the various biological specimens you could theoretically analyze, the advantage of providing a relatively reliable long-term measure of Hg exposure (from a few months to a year), are easily collected, transported,stored, and cleaned and are relatively sheltered from environmental contaminants and less likely to be contaminated by shampoo, hair treatments, and medication (Morris. 1983, He 2011).

  

  Image 5: Who would have thought that your toenails provide a way better measure of the toxic load you have accumulated than your hair, for example? Just looking at them is yet not enough for a thorough analysis

  Since the Hg levels in toenails also have relatively high correlation with both mercury intake (r = 0.54; Ohno. 2007) and the mercury deposition in critical organs (spec. in the brain - r = 0.65 ; Bjorkman. 2007), it should be obvious that the association between toe nail mercury levels and fish intake in all, but those participants who lived in Oakland and had the lowest (0.45 servings per day) fish intake per day could have a significant impact on the health of the subjects that consume more than one serving of fish per day and have a 76% higher beta coefficient of the natural logarithm of toenail Hg level than those who consume fish / seafood less than once per day (this mean that the mercury in the toenails of daily fish eaters increases 75% more rapidly towards that level than in those who eat 0.35 to 1.03 servings). Interestingly this was particularly true for the Caucasian men in the study, where the beta coefficient was another 45% higher (beta = 0.64 vs. beta = 0.44).
  Despite the fact that these results seem to confirm that eating one dose of untested canned tuna (which would probably go as way more than one serving in the eyes of the scientists) is not necessarily the best idea. It does however not mean that you cannot have you once or even twice a weak salmon steak or sushi - just keep your diet more versatile and don't make fish (or any other single foodstuff your only "allowed" source of protein or fat.

• 

  Figure 2: Weight of castrated rats on TRT, TRT (50% dose) + Eurycoma longifolia  (EL) or Eurycoma longifolia, alone, at the end of the 6-week supplementation phase, ratio of bone building osteocalcin to CRX a marker of bone resorption and actual bone strength, as measure by maximal tolerable load and Young's Modulus; all data expressed relative to sham operated (=intact) rats (data calculated based on Saadiah Abdul Razak. 2013)

  Low dose testosterone + long jack better than TRT alone? The results Saadiah Abdul Razak et al. present in the latest issue of Evidence Based Complementary Medicine don't actually look like they were interesting for muscle heads, I mean "androgen dependent osteoporosis", where are the word hypertrophy, skeletal muscle, or at least ripped & jacked? And I have to admit that of these only "skeletal muscle" makes its appearance somewhere in the introductory remarks of the discussion and only in the context of the "auxiliary functions" of testosterone as a growth hormone and IGF-1 booster and muscle builder. I do still believe that the data in the figure 2 on the right is going to get your attention - after all, the combination treatment of testosterone + Eurycoma longifolia did not "just" restore the balance of the "bone builder" osteocalcin to the "bone eater" ORX (actually it's just a marker of bone resorption) to normal (=sham levels), it did also effectively build the strongest bones, with the highest maximal load in Newton and the greatest elastic stability, as measured by the Young's Modulus.
  What's interesting, as well, is that all treatments were equally effective in restoring normal body weight - who knows maybe 15mg/kg/day (HED: 2.4mg/kg; ~170-250mg/day) of Eurycoma longifolia (EL) extract would even make a valuable stand alone (no pun intended ;-) testosterone booster for mild cases of real hypogonadism (not the one where your diet is shitty, your training sucks and it's your "low T" that you believe is to to blame that you make no gains), or an adjunct to HRT that would allow you to use only half the regular dose (this was done in the study at hand) and see similar results!? That it's good for sperm quality and testosterone, when it's administered in ~13x higher dosages in rodents (Chan. 2009) and for sperm health in men (at about the dosage used here; cf. Tambi. 2010) has already been established.
  And still, the "major gap" of which Bhat et al. postulated that it existed "in [sic!] providing scientific base for commercial utilization and clearance of the Tongkat Ali products with regard to consumer's safety" is still in existence. Moreover, the same could be said about our knowledge with respect to the individual effects of the potentially biologically active component(s) in the plant and respective extracts. Before those issues are not solved, the "extract" you may buy could be anything from uberpotent to simply toxic... although I suspect that it is still most likely that it will simply be ineffective.

What? That went too fast? Don't worry, it's just two days to the Thursdaily Science News Roundup on SHR, four days to the next official installment of "On Short Notice" and just one click away from a handful of additional up-to-the-minute news on the SuppVersity Facebook Wall such as

• the correlation of low growth hormone levels with NAFLD (= non-alcoholic fatty liver disease), 
• a study on how digestion potentates the antimicrobial activity of coconut oil,
• a potential successor to metformin that triples muscular glucose uptake in the absence of insulin 

and all the other interesting tidbits I have already and am still going to post there even before the next SuppVersity news is going to be published right here, tomorrow! Ah,... and by the way it's not prohibited to share articles you like on Facebook and other social media outlets ;-)

References:

• Ahmed, L.A., Protective effects of magnesium supplementation on metabolic energy derangements in
  lipopolysaccharide-induced cardiotoxicity in mice. Eur J Pharmacol. 2013.
• Bhat R, Karim AA. Tongkat Ali (Eurycoma longifolia Jack): a review on its ethnobotany and pharmacological importance. Fitoterapia. 2010 Oct;81(7):669-79. Epub 2010 Apr 29. 
• Bjorkman L, Lundekvam BF, Laegreid T, Bertelsen BI, Morild I, Lilleng P, Lind B, Palm B, Vahter M. Mercury in human brain, blood, muscle and toenails in relation to exposure: an
  autopsy study. Environ Health. 2007; 6:30 
• Chan KL, Low BS, Teh CH, Das PK. The effect of Eurycoma longifolia on sperm quality of male rats. Nat Prod Commun. 2009 Oct;4(10):1331-6. 
• Fry JC, Yurttas N, Biermann KL, Lindley MG, Goulson MJ. The Sweetness Concentration-Response of R,R-Monatin, a Naturally Occurring High-Potency Sweetener. J Food Sci. 2013 Aug 27.  
• He K. Trace elements in nails as biomarkers in clinical research. Eur J Clin Invest. 2011;  41(1):98–102.
• Maes M, Kubera M, Leunis JC. The gut-brain barrier in major depression: intestinal mucosal dysfunction with an increased translocation of LPS from gram negative enterobacteria (leaky gut) plays a role in the inflammatory pathophysiology of depression. Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2008 Feb;29(1):117-24.
• Morris JS, Stampfer MJ, Willett WC Dietary selenium in humans: toenails as an indicator. Biol Trace Elem Res. 1983; 5:529–537.
• Ohno T, Sakamoto M, Kurosawa T, Dakeishi M, Iwata T, Murata K. Total mercury levels in hair, toenail, and urine among women free from occupational exposure and their relations to renal tubular function. Environ Res. 2007;103(2):191–1.
• Saadiah Abdul Razak H, Shuid AN, Naina Mohamed I. Combined Effects of Eurycoma
  longifolia and Testosterone on Androgen-Deficient Osteoporosis in a Male Rat Model. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2013;2013:872406. Epub 2013 Aug 9.
• Whittaker JP, Linden MD, Coffey VG. Effect of Aerobic Interval Training and Caffeine on Blood Platelet Function. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2013 Aug 29.
• Xun P, Liu K, Morris JS, Jordan JM, He K. Distributions and determinants of mercury concentrations in toenails among American young adults: the CARDIA Trace Element Study. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2013 Aug 25.

On Short Notice: Red Onions For Glutathion & Jiagulan For Muscle Glycogen, Low Iron & Obesity, Sodium Caprate, Useless Probiotics & Leaky Gut, Perivascular Fat & Heat Shock Proteins for Your Heart & Magnesium vs. Migraine

Image 1: You may already have read it on the SuppVersity Facebook Wall; "Sacrificing sleep in order to study won't improve your college grades..." it could however easily whack your circadian rhythm and give you headaches. If those turn into a migraine, you may be happy to have read about beneficial effects of magnesium on the incidence of these crippling and painful attacks (see last item in this installment of "On Short Notice" ).

In order to avoid having another weekend of "On Short Notice" posts, I decided to post the first collection today, already. The topics are, as usually, only loosely related and I hope that each and everyone of you will find something he or she considers interesting. We'll start out by having a brief look at the amazing antioxidant effects of red onions, and then delve deeper into the connection between obesity and low ferritin levels and a brief reminder that sometimes good things can become bad, if they are not handled properly, next on the list are the tight gut junction opening effects of sodium caprate which may be a good thing if your goal is to increase the bioavailability of berberine, but a very bad thing, if other molecules take the opportunity and pass through the open doors, as we are then going to see Dr. Shirota's probiotics are probably not going to help you avoid this problem and they are certainly not helping patients with metabolic syndrome: The latter is probably also true for PPAR-gamma antagonists, which may help prevent visceral fat accumulation, but could at the same time precipitate to heart disease by decreasing the surprisingly heart-healthy perivascular fat.

Although more of an ergogenic, Gynostemma penthaphylum (aka Jiagulan) is probably a more promising strategy to get in better shape. If it allows you to train harder, it will also allow you to make better use of potential systemic health effects of exercised induced heat shock protein expression... and just in case all that was so much information that you are having a headache once you have arrived at the end of this blogpost, a 500mg dose of magnesium could help you reduce the incidence of migraine attacks by more than 60% whether additional 500mg of carnitine make this treatment even more effective does yet remain to be elucidated!

• Do your liver and body antioxidant system a favor and add a couple of red onions to your diet! That's the straight forward take home message from a recently conducted study by a group of Korean scientists (Lee. 2013). The researchers had investigated  the effect of red onion on the total activity of antioxidant enzymes in 18-week-old Sprague-Dawley rats. To this ends the rodent had been kept on a diet enriched with red onion peel, flesh or both (all pulverized and mixed into the standard chow for a total content of 5g per 100g) for for weeks.

  

  Figure 1: The red onions outperformed easily outperformed their uncolored white brethren and cousin, white onions and garlic, in the in vitro dish and had profound antioxidant boosting effects in the in vivo study (Lee. 2013).

  The results, (a) a significant increase in plasma SOD activity in the red onion peel and red onion (peel + flesh) groups, (b) a significantly higher GPX (enzyme that recycles glutathione) activity in the in the red onion flesh group and (c) a general tendency towards higher catalase and ORAC activity in the livers and profoundly reduced liver malondialdehyde (=marker of lipid peroxidation) levels in the red onion groups provide an in vivo (allegedly only "in rodent vivo" ;-) confirmation of the in vitro data in figure 1 which is - as usual - to be treated with caution before respective experiments in complex, real organisms confirm that they are more than artifacts of the respective essay.
• Low iron (ferritin) associated with obesity in adolescents, but simple eating more iron probably won't solve either the iron deficiency, nor the (central) obesity. That's at least what the results of a recent investigation in normal and fat Greek kids would suggest, after all the fat kids did already consume more iron in their diets than their lean age-mates (Moschonis. 2013).
  What makes this study worth mentioning is the (as usual hasty) conclusion that iron must be a bad guy, when just its mismanagement (probably as a result of adiposity induced liver problems, or, as a handful of older and recent studies would suggest vitamin A deficiency; e.g. Arruda. 2009; Citelli. 2013; Yohsikawa. 2013) is a problem - so don't get fooled, donating blood every other week won't lean healthy people out, it will just drain them out.

• 

  Figure 2: Sodium caprate won't "open" the tight gut junctions for berberine, only, but also for all sorts of other, mostly unwanted junk - self-induced temporary leaky gut so to say!

  Sodium caprate opens tight junctions of the gut and let's berberine in. The consequence is an amplification of the hypoglycemic effects of berberine (Lv. 2013), but at the same time it is likely to amplify the effects of whatever you else put into your mouth or the critters that live in your stomach are pooping out - I guess it should be obvious that I am referring to the LPS assault from your gut microbiome, here and that the potential increase in lipopolysaccharide could well outweigh (in a negative sense) the benefits you would see from an increased bioavailability (~1.5-2.3 fold; cf. Lv. 2010) of berberine.
  
  Against that background I am really not sure how sensible the use of sodium caprate or other "tight junction openers" of natural or pharamacological origin really is. But hey, that's just me - maybe you are less cautious...  if there are not yet any products like that on the market, it probably won't be long until the first "enhanced" berberine appear in the line-ups of the large "health supplement" vendors on the Internet.

• 

  Image 2: Patented lactobacillus strains are all the rave, and probably big business... that does yet not mean that they work - regardless of whether they carry the name of famous Drs or not ;-)

  Probiotic supplements don't cure everything - although many ads may give just this impression. In a recently published study, Swiss researchers were not able to show any beneficial effects of the patented L. casei Shirota strain on the increased gut permeability of 28 patients with metabolic syndrome (Leber. 2013). In the course of the three months study period, it rather exasperated the already elevated C-reactive protein levels, due to liposaccharide leakage through the leaky gut into the system and I bet the only reason that the conclusion states that the dosage may have been too low instead of "this is initial evidence that the use of L. casei Shirota is not useful if  not counter-indicated in to treat gut permeability in patients with MetS", was the financial support by Yakult Europe the patent holder of L. casei Shirota ;-)
• PPAR-gamma ablation leads to loss of perivascular adipose tissue (PVAT). What may at first sound great could in fact be deadly. The recently published results of Chang et al. show quite clearly that non-tissue-specific blockade of the "fat builder" PPAR-gamma (cf. "Tangeritin, Natural Metformin from the Rind of Mandarin Oranges Hits the OFF-Switch on Diet Induced Obesity") is a dangerous undertaking. While keeping the differentiation and growth of body fat at bay, especially in the abdominal region, would be a good thing, the high rate of atherosclerosis among the mice from the laboratories of the University of Michigan confirms that "not all body fat is created evil" (Chang. 2013).

  

  Figure 3: Fitzgibbons et al. were already able to show that the UCP-1 expression, which is a marker of metabolic activity, in PVAT is equally high as in the meanwhile infamous brown adipose tissue. In short - PVAT just like BAT will not just store superfluous lipids, it will also burn them and prevent them from accumulating in the vasculature (Fitzgibbons. 2011)

  As it turned out, PVAT, rather than being proinflammatory and hazardous, actually has a protective function on the vasculature it is sourrounding. In fact, the results Chang et al. are presenting in the latest issue of Circulation suggest the assumption that PVAT is anti-inflammatory and functionally similar to the metabolically active brown adipose tissue that has gotten quite some attention by experts ad laymen as of lat. When it's suddenly missing, the lipids inside the vascular can no longer be cleared into the perivascular adipose tissue where they would be oxidized and disposed of. In addition, the ensuing pro-atherogenic coupled with the absence of PVAT-derived prostacyclin, a prostanoid that's metabolized from endogenous arachidonic acid through the cyclooxygenase (COX) pathway and acts as a potent vasodilator (cf. Ruan. 2010) could thus easily set you up to die before your time - regardless of how lean you may have become...
  And though it is very unlikely that this is going to happen from the use of one of the freely available herbs with anti-PPAR-gamma effects (e.g. tashinones from Salvia miltiorrhiza, or the previously cited tangeritin), it certainly is a good reminder of how fatal our constant black-and-white thinking can be, when it is injudiciously applied to such complex matters as our own body.

• 

  Image 4 (dracoherbs.com): Gynostemma penthaphylum is also known as Jiaogulan, is often mentioned in the same breath with ginseng in TCM

  Gynostemma penthaphylum boosts endurance by ROS scavenging and multiplying skeletal muscle glycogen stores. Not yet another potent anti-oxidant was what I first thought,when I hit upon the soon-to-be published study from Shaanxi Normal University in Xi'an, China, but after taking a closer look it turned out that the way this century old adaptogen that goes by the name jiaogulanin TCM and is an herbaceous vine of the family Cucurbitaceae (cucumber or gourd family) indigenous to the southern reaches of China, northern Vietnam, southern Korea, and Japan, could actually make quite an exciting supplement (Chi. 2013). After all its high ROS(radical oxygen specimen) scavenging abilities are only part of what allowed the rodents in the study by Chi, Tang, Zhang & Zhang that had been treaded with isolated polysaccharides from this plant to go significantly longer during a standardized exercise performance test.
  The more intruiging part of the performance boost, however came from the direct pro-gluconeogenic and glyocogen storage promoting effects of the alpha variety of the three Gynostemma penhaphylum polyssacharides the scientists had extracted. If similar effects would be seen in humans, GP would certainly make a valuable addition to the regimen of anyone who does not just perform 1-rep maxes day in and day out - and let's face it: In view of the fact that the glycogen can't be synthesized from nothing, it could also help to burn body fat, by it's repartitioning effects.

• 

  Figure 4: It would certainly be an unwarranted overgeneralization to ascribe all beneficial effects of exercise to the systemic expression of heat shock proteins. But still, there is increasing evidence that their controlled expression does at least contribute to the numerous beneficial effects exercise has on our brains, hearts and other organs; interestingly these effects are likewise mediated by the breakdown and the protection and "recycling" of organ tissue.

  Will training your biceps, heal your heart and protect your brain!? You probably know that the scientists at the McMaster University have put the myth of the pro-anabolic effects of systemically circulating hormones that are released response to isolated muscle training (eg. "train your legs to increase your testosterone and see your arms grow") at rest, years ago. Now, a study that's soon going to be published in theh Journal of Experimental Biology suggests that testosterone, growth hormone and co. may not be the only molecules we should be looking for, when we talk about possible non-localized effects of exercise (Jammes. 2013). Another class of proteins that has gotten quite some attention esp. in the context of the profound effects of occlusion training, the so-called heat-shock proteins, which are released in response not just to heat, but to exhaustive contractions / trauma / hypoxia / etc., could in fact play a likewise, probably more important role not so much in skeletal muscle growth, maybe, but in the overall systemic response to exhaustive skeletal muscle contractions. 
  After all, Jammes et al. observed a delayed, but significant elevation of non phosphorylated HSP25 and HSP70 in skeletal and respiratory muscles, kidney, and brain. Now, of HSP70, for example, it has long been known that it exerts cardio-protective effects (Martin. 1997). In addition to its anti-apoptotic effects, it does yet also contribute to the proteolysis (=protein breaking) that's a necessary part of the continuous clean-up processes that remove the "junk" and "clutter" (defect protein structures) from your body in order to keep everything functional (Lüders. 2000). Similarly, HSP25 (aka HSPB1) exerts both cytoprotective effects due to its ability to modulate reactive oxygen species and raise glutathione levels, as well as proteolytic effects and is working hand in hand with HSP70 by inhibiting protein aggregation and stabilizing partially denatured proteins, so that they can be refolded by the former. That the latter could be of particular importants in view of the neuroprotective effects of exercise is also supported by a couple of trials in which HSPB1, to be precise, its exogenous administration or endogenous overexpression, have been evaluated as treatment or preventive strategies in ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease), Huntington's, Parkinson's, Stroke and acute nerve injury (for an overview see table 3 in Brownell. 2013).

• 

  Figure 5: The benefit of l-carnitine is questionable, despite the fact that the serum l-carnitine in the Mg group dropped to a similar extent as in the control group; over time the carnitine depletion could however become important (Tarighat Esfanjani. 2013)

  Headaches? Magnesium and l-carnitin help! At a dosage of 500mg/day magnesium oxide, alone did already have significant beneficial effects on the occurrence of migraine in  106 females and 27 males volunteers who were diagnosed with headache according to the International Headache Society criteria, were between the age of 18 and 55 years old and "had severe and continual headache lasting from 4 to 72 h, unilateral and pulsating headaches with moderate or severe intensity, migraine with or without aura, at least two attacks per month, headaches which were aggravated by routine physical activity and associated with nausea and/or photophobia, and phonophobia" (Tarighat Esfanjani. 2013).
  So, if that sounds like you (I don't hope it does) magnesium should be the least you should take, the additional 500 mg/day L-carnitine is questionable - just as whether ALCAR may have provided greater benefits. Apropos, you do realize that this is neither transdermal nor any fancy chelated magnesium or at least magnesium citrate that did the trick? Yeah, right: The same "worthless" (put name of random nutrition guru, here) mg-oxide you find in the cheapest fizzy tablet from the supermarket did the trick!

If you are now thirsty for more, I suggest you check out the SuppVersity Facebook Wall (which is by the way updated several times a day), like the career-boosting information that sacrificing sleep in order to study is a bad idea, that Caucasians, compared to Asians, lose weight relatively easily, but have a hard time getting rid of their bellies, or, if all that ain't for you, how the wise producers of "functional foods" are planning to add a little wood aka methylcellulose into your yogurts and smoothies to curb the cravings you probably would not have, if they had not removed all the fat from it, before ;-)

 References:

• Brownell SE, Becker RA, Steinman L. The protective and therapeutic function of small heat shock proteins in neurological diseases. Front Immunol. 2013;3:74. Epub 2013 May 1.
• Chang L, Villacorta L, Li R, Hamblin M, Xu W, Dou C, Zhang J, Wu J, Zeng R, Chen YE. Loss of Perivascular Adipose Tissue upon PPARγ Deletion in Smooth Muscle Cells Impairs Intravascular Thermoregulation and Enhances Atherosclerosis. Circulation. 2013 Aug 1. 
• Chi A, Tang L, Zhang J, Zhang K. Chemical Composition of three Ingredients of Polysaccharides from Gynostemma pentaphyllum and Comparison of their Antioxidant Activity in Skeletal Muscle of Exhaustive Exercise Mice. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2013 Aug 14.
• Citelli M, Bittencourt LL, da Silva SV, Pierucci AP, Pedrosa C. Vitamin A Modulates the Expression of Genes Involved in Iron Bioavailability. Biol Trace Elem Res. 2013 Apr 14. 
• Fitzgibbons TP, Kogan S, Aouadi M, Hendricks GM, Straubhaar J, Czech MP. Similarity of mouse perivascular and brown adipose tissues and their resistance to diet-induced inflammation. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 2011 Oct;301(4):H1425-37.
• Jammes Y, Steinberg JG, By Y, Brerro-Saby C, Condo J, Olivier M, Guieu R, Delliaux S. Fatiguing stimulation of one skeletal muscle triggers heat shock proteins activation in several rat organs: the role of muscle innervation. J Exp Biol. 2013 Aug 16.  
• Leber B, Tripolt NJ, Blattl D, Eder M, Wascher TC, Pieber TR, Stauber R, Sourij H, Oettl K, Stadlbauer V. The influence of probiotic supplementation on gut permeability in patients with metabolic syndrome: an open label, randomized pilot study. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2013 Aug 8.
• Lee B, Jung JH, Kim HS. Assessment of red onion on antioxidant activity in rat. Food and Chemical Toxicology. August 10, 2013.
• Lüders J, Demand J, Höhfeld J. The ubiquitin-related BAG-1 provides a link between the molecular chaperones Hsc70/Hsp70 and the proteasome. J Biol Chem. 2000 Feb 18;275(7):4613-7. 
• Lv, X.Y., Li, J., Zhang, M., Wang, C.M., Fan, Z., Wang, C.Y., Chen, L., 2010. Enhancement of sodium caprate on intestine absorption and antidiabetic action of berberine. AAPS.PharmSciTech. 11, 372–382. 
• Martin JL, Mestril R, Hilal-Dandan R, Brunton LL, Dillmann WH. Small heat shock proteins and protection against ischemic injury in cardiac myocytes. Circulation. 1997 Dec 16;96(12):4343-8. 
• Moschonis G, Chrousos GP, Lionis C, Mougios V, Manios Y. Association of total body and visceral fat mass with iron deficiency in preadolescents: the Healthy Growth Study. Br J Nutr. 2011 Nov 16:1-10.
• Ruan CH, Dixon RA, Willerson JT, Ruan KH. Prostacyclin therapy for pulmonary arterial hypertension. Tex Heart Inst J. 2010;37(4):391-9. 
• Tarighat Esfanjani A, Mahdavi R, Ebrahimi Mameghani M, Talebi M, Nikniaz Z, Safaiyan A. The Effects of Magnesium, L-: Carnitine, and Concurrent Magnesium-L-: Carnitine Supplementation in Migraine Prophylaxis. Biol Trace Elem Res. 2013 Aug 17. 
• Yoshikava O, Ebata Y, Tsuchiya H, et al. A retinoic acid receptor agonist tamibarotene suppresses iron accumulation in the liver. Obesity. 2013 Aug.
• Zhanga M, Lvc X, Lia J, Menga Z, Wangd Q, Changa W, Lia W, Chena L. Sodium caprate augments the hypoglycemic effect of berberine via AMPK in inhibiting hepatic gluconeogenesis. Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology. 16 August 2013

The Ergogenic Effect of Nonalcoholic Beer Front- & Back Loading + 15 Beerish Health Facts Everyone Should Know

Image 1: Erdinger Weißbräu Alkoholfrei your first choice for peri workout isotonic carbohydrate supplementation!?

Where else, if not from Germany, "The Land of Beer and Weißwurst" as it is falsely perceived by the average foreign Oktoberfest visitor, could the data for a study on the ergogenic effects of nonalcoholic beer originate from? In their recently published paper Johannes Scherr and his colleageas from the Department of Prevention and Sports Medicine at the Klinikum rechts der Isar of the Univerisity of Munich report that a 'forntload + post-supplementation' strategy (3 weeks before, 2 weeks after) with 1-1.5l/day of Erdinger Weißbräu Alkoholfrei led to statistically significant reductions in post-race total blood leukocyte counts (-9%) and interleukin-6 (-24%) and 66% lower incidence of upper-respiratory tract infections in the 58 beer-drinking subjects (age: 36-51y), when compared to their 63 peers(age:35-49y) who received an isocaloric control beverage, which differed from the beer only in terms of its polyphenol content (Scherr. 2013).

It's not all about Erdinger Alkoholfrei  - 15 Beerish Health Facts You Should Know

In fact, the ergogenic effects Scherr et al. observed in their most recent study are probably nothing but one of the manifold downstream effects of the nutrient dense non-alcoholic fraction of 'amber nectar', which consists of a whole host of bioactive ingredients with at least as many, mostly beneficial health effects (the following is in part based on Sohrabvandi. 2010; where other references were used, additional references are provided):

How exactly is nonalcoholic beer produced?

• Fermentation-free brewing and dilution procedures won't produce results European or US costumers will be happy with, therefore it is mostly used in Islamic countries
• Alcohol removal by vacuum destillation, adsorptive alcohol removal, dialysis, reverse osmosis, or osmotic distillation
• Restricted alcohol fermentation uses yeast that can only partially ferment the wort or represses or interrupts fermentation by applying different compositional and/or process procedures (interrupted fermentation technique)
• Fermenting with GMO bacteria which lack the alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) enzyme and produce no or minimal amonts of alcohol.
• Reducing fermentable fractions / glucose content in wort by adjusting the concentration of sugar in the primary formulation so that no considerable sugar residue remains after the restricted fermentation period.
• Heating or pressurizing the wort to inactivate yeast cells and inhibit the subsequent alcoholic fermentation, as soon as the desired flavor profile of the wort was achieved

Note: The beer in the study at hand was brewed under tightly controlled temperature (the exact method is apparently a company secret, though).

• has potentially blood pressure lowering effect due to high potassium to sodium ratio (typically 4:1) 
• is relatively rich in magnesium and to less extent in phosphorous
• contains glutathione precursors and co-factors zinc, copper, selenium and amino acids
• features physiologically active immuno-modulatory peptides and proteins
• has 35+ phenolic compounds (about 80–90% from malt and 10–20% from hops)
• may prevent and improve obesity and type-2 diabetes, improve lipid metabolism, and suppress atherosclerosis due to beneficial health effects of the bitter substances in hops (Kondo. 2004)
• has been shown to improve sleep and lactation in women; probably due to bioactive molecules from hops (Koletzko. 2000; Franco. 2013)
• contains folate and glycine betaine which exert antimutagenic effects and reduce homocysteine
• has up to 6.2g fiber per liter
• its β-pseudouridine content may protect against radiation damage (Monobe. 2003)
• contains silicic acid which increases renal excretion of aluminum (Aluminum has been associated with age related diseases and neurodegeneration; cf. Krewski. 2007)
• is associated with higher hip mineral density in older men who drink 2 regular beers/day; probably due to its silicon content (Tucker. 2009)
• provides more antioxidants per day than wine to the U.S. diet (Vinson. 2003)
• exerts anti-oxidative effects on lipoproteins (=cholesterol) which are superior to that of its vitamin & antioxidants, alone (Vinson. 2003)
• unfortunately, allegedly gluten-free barley based beers contain significant amounts of hordein (=gluten) and are not suitabe for patients with celiac disease (Colgrave. 2013)

Now compare that to your average energy drink, which - as you should by now be aware of - may deliver zero fat calories and will still add 18g /day of body fat right to your frame, when consumed on a daily basis (cf. "Fat Content Per Energy Drink 0g, Body Fat Gain Per Energy Drink 18g!")

Image 2 (FOX): Homer always knew what Schütze et al. confirmed in 2009: "Beer consumption leads to [waist circumference] gain [...] closely related to overall weight gain. This study does not support the common belief of a site-specific effect of beer on the abdomen."

Implications: In view of the fact that carbohydrate supplementation is still common practice among endurance athletes, I don't see why a refreshing nonalcoholic beer (1.5l of Erdinger Weißbreu Alkoholfrei contain 375kcal and ~75g of carbohydrates)  that has been brewed according to the German purity law should not be at least as good as one of those sugar-laden electrolyte drinks or gels with artificial colorings and what not.

Moreover, the relatively high phenolic content of the beer (~400 mg of gallic acid equivalents per day), of which Scherr et al. speculate that it was the underyling reason for the observed benefits, could render the use of other polyphenolic supplements obsolete, save you money and keep you healthy and sane, as only few people are like me don't like the taste of beer and can thus sit in the Biergarten with nothing but plain water, while their friends hoist brew after brew... although, when I come to think about it: Maybe I should order some Erdinger later today? *rofl*

---

Note: The study was financed from a fund that was established by the Erdinger Weissbraeu, Werner Brombach GmbH. Contrary to some other researchers Scherr et al. do yet openly disclose the funding and state that "the funders had nodirect role in the study’s design, conduct, analysis, interpretation of data, and reporting" - and before you start lamenting, now, think about who finances and conducts the studies on pharmaceuticals...

References:

• Colgrave ML, Goswami H, Howitt CA, Tanner GJ. What is in a beer? Proteomic characterization and relative quantification of hordein (gluten) in beer. J Proteome Res. 2013 Jan 1;11(1):386-96.
• Franco L, Sánchez C, Bravo R, Rodríguez AB, Barriga C, Romero E, Cubero J. The sedative effect of non-alcoholic beer in healthy female nurses. PLoS One. 2013;7(7):e37290. Epub 2013 Jul 18.
• Koletzko B, Lehner F. Beer and breastfeeding. Adv Exp Med Biol. 2000;478:23-8. Review.
• Kondo K. Beer and health: preventive effects of beer components on lifestyle-related diseases. Biofactors. 2004;22(1-4):303-10.
• Krewski D, Yokel RA, Nieboer E, Borchelt D, Cohen J, Harry J, Kacew S, Lindsay J, Mahfouz AM, Rondeau V. Human health risk assessment for aluminium, aluminium oxide, and aluminium hydroxide. J Toxicol Environ Health B Crit Rev. 2007;10 Suppl 1:1-269.
• Monobe M, Arimoto-Kobayashi S, Ando K. Beta-pseudouridine, a beer component, reduces radiation-induced chromosome aberrations in human lymphocytes. Mutat Res. 2003 Jul 8;538(1-2):93-9.
• Scherr J, Nieman DC, Schuster T, Habermann J, Rank M, Braun S, Pressler A, Wolfarth B, Halle M. Nonalcoholic beer reduces inflammation and incidence of respiratory tract illness. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2013 Jan;44(1):18-26.
• Schütze M, Schulz M, Steffen A, Bergmann MM, Kroke A, Lissner L, Boeing H. Beer consumption and the 'beer belly': scientific basis or common belief? Eur J Clin Nutr. 2009 Sep;63(9):1143-9. Epub 2009 Jun 24.
• Sohrabvandi S, Mousavi SM, Razavi SH, Mortazavian AM, Rezaei K. Alcohol-free Beer: Methods of Production, Sensorial Defects, and Healthful Effects, Food Reviews International. 2010;26:4, 335-352
• Tucker KL, Jugdaohsingh R, Powell JJ, Qiao N, Hannan MT, Sripanyakorn S, Cupples LA, Kiel DP. Effects of beer, wine, and liquor intakes on bone mineral density in older men and women. Am J Clin Nutr. 2009 Apr;89(4):1188-96.
• Vinson JA, Mandarano M, Hirst M, Trevithick JR, Bose P. Phenol antioxidant quantity and quality in foods: beers and the effect of two types of beer on an animal model of atherosclerosis. J Agric Food Chem. 2003 Aug 27;51(18):5528-33.

BPA & Phtalate News for the Plasti-Nation. The Endocrine Contribution to Muscle Growth. Magnesium & Testosterone Increase in Parallel. Anabolic Vibes on the Lat Pull & More

You still have a couple of milli- or centimeter too much on your waistline? Let's hope this spring will provide ample time to work out in the sun, after all that's the energizing way to work out, something even virtual reality indoor exercise cannot compete with (Plante. 2006)

The SuppVersity figure of the week is "90". That was the average total amount of sunshine hours we got here in North-Rhine-Westphalia within the winter months (DWD. 2013; and there were places with only 40h!). A pretty depressing figure, in the literal sense. If you listened to the last installment of the Science Round Up (click here to download the podcast), you may remember that I was actually somewhat surprised to hear that this was the darkest Winter ever since the sunshine hours have been recorded - after all, I got my 45min of "artificial sunshine" in, every morning. So, just in case you are still wondering how it's possible to write a blogpost everyday, the data from a 2013 series of studies in Dutch schools would support that it's all about the right lighting (Sleeges. 2013).

Apropos news, here is your weekly serving of short news on all sorts of things... you are missing the exercise related news? Well, I saved those for a round-up and one or two individual posts in the course of the next week ;-)

• Fiber renders mammalian guts colon proof (Nagy-Szakal. 2013) -- As a recent rodent study from the Baylor University suggest, it can hardly be too early to keep an eye on fiber intake. The mice in the pertinent study that had been randomly assigned to a low-cellulose (indigestible fiber that's present in fruits, veggies, whole grains etc.) diet had little to no protection against experimentally induced cholitis.
  
  

  

  Semisynthetic non-fermentable viscous fiber Hydroxpropyl-Methylcellulose is imported pound-wise from China and ends up as E464 from in all sorts of food - obviously at too low dosages to do the anti-obesity trick, though (learn more).

  Murine pediatric cellulose supplementation, on other hand, induces transient trophic and  anticolitic effects, which is - and that's important (!) - dependent on a continuous supply of adequate amounts of dietary fiber. The same goes for the benefifical changes in the diversity of the gut microbiome which did largely  decline after only 10 days.
  
  The protective effect on the epithelial cell lining and the increase in surface area in response to cellulose supplementation should also facilitate the uptake of those vitally important nutrients, people with Crohn's etc. are lacking - a result that may well be significant for those of you who are trying to make the most of the nutrients and not just the energy in their diets.
  
  Edit: As George Henderson rightly said, the study at hand does not talk about cancer protection, I simply inferred that from previous human studies such as Mendez (2007), Terry (2001) or Roth (2001), without mentioning that, my mistake, sorry for that. I still changed the headline to reflect the contents of the study and want to point out that George also makes a valid point stating that (a) fiber often replaces other less healthy nutrients in the diet and (b) that (my addition) "once the baby has been thrown out with the bathtub" and you already have Crohn's and co different rules may apply.

• The diabesity syndrome - Is it the soda, or the bottle it's packaged in? (Indumathi. 2013) I am well aware that the doses of BPA we are supposed to get from our "diets" is way below those that are uses in rodent studies like the one by Indumathi et al., but don't you think that it is still remarkable that the same plastic poison aka BPA that leaches so readily into the acidic brown soup 50% of the US citizens guzzle on a daily basis, induces exactly the same nasty reductions in insulin receptor and GLUT-4 transporter expression, as well as glucose oxidation and the phosphorylation of Akt which are currently still ascribed exclusively to the soda itself (see figure 1).

  

  Figure 2: Effects of 20 or 200mg/kg body weight of BPA on insulin receptor and Akt phosphorylation, GLUT-4 expression in skeletal muscle and systemic insulin and testosterone levels (Indumathi. 2013)

  Now what's worst is that these pathological changes are not likely to be observed, because it happens "silently"; i.e. in the absence of elevated blood glucose levels.
  Did you know that the amount of BPA that leaches from plastics increases by x40, when you dishwash and reuse them (Brede. 2003)? And worst of all, these figures were observed in baby bottles and thus objects those of us get in contact for whom the otherwise probably harmless exposure could actually be dangerous (DiVall. 2013). Exposure to higher temperatures of liquids in plastic containers in the summer (>40°C) is another factor which contributes to an increased leakage of BPA from the container into the liquid (Makris.2013)
  With the latter being the only blood parameters that are evaluated on a regular basis within at least a reasonably large cross section of the population it's no wonder that many of us don't see how the diabetic beast and the BPA castrator are sneaking up on them before it's already too late. Obviously no reason for the FDA or any other governmental body to even bother. Aside from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency which has published a reference dose of 0.05 mg/kg/day for BPA in 1993 (IRIS. 1993) an official acceptable daily reference intake for BPA is still lacking. Even if the current research does not suggest that our daily exposure is high enough to actually do any harm, I would expect the reference levels to reflect that - what about you?

• 

  In 1998 the Consumer Union wrote a letter to the FDA compaining about "endocrine disrupting chemicals" in cheese and dairy in plastics wrappings. I wonder if they knew about the masked phtalates in hygiene products, as well.

  More news for the"Plasti-Nations" (various): A couple of days ago Wu et el. published a paper on the TSH and estrogen suppressive effects of phtalates in Taiwanese children. With >40% lower TSH levels and estrogen levels the changes, in the 4-5 year olds with the highest (500ppm) phtalate exposure from food stuff is alarming. The only good news is that it these changes appear to be reversible, when further exposure is avoided (Wu.2013).
  
  Apropos good news, in December 2013, Fierens et al. investigated the effects of cooking at home on the phtalate content of foods and found that, except for veggies, the phtalate content of almost all foods decline after cooking (Fierens. 2013). I guess, I don't have to mention that this is not going to happen in a crock pot unless you pour away the brew.
  
  What you should also keep in mind is that your diet is by far not the only way you are exposed to phtalates, as a group of scientists working at a University right around my corner elucidated (Koch. 2013). The "pro-breast cancer" monoethyl carboxylpentyl phthalates (MEPs) for example usually come from personal hygiene products (it's the stuff thats called "fragrance"). The dosage, by the way, was high enough for the scientists to be able to actually measure rises in MEP concentrations after people (esp. men, by the way) took a shower. Ah, and not to forget a non-negligible amount of the low molecular weight phtalates is simply with ubiquitous sources including dust and indoor air. Up to now convincing evidence for the role of this constant assault in any of the ailments our society is suffering from is not conclusive.

• Don't like oats? Buckwheat has similar benefits (Stringer. 2013) -- In a recently published paper in the scientific journal Metabolism, a group of researchers from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, reports that the consumption of buckwheat cracker either instead of rice crackers or simply on their own could help both diabetics and non-diabetics maintain a healthy weight.
  
  

  

  4x more iron, 3x more calcium, >9 times more magnesium, ~6x more potassium and about twice as much zinc, copper and manganese that's what buckwheat flour has to offer compared to wheat (de Francischi. 1994). If you like those figures, what about havin' one of the pancakes you see above (recipe)

  Yet, despite an increased satiety effect and improvements (increases / decreases) in the corresponding hormones glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide (GIP) and pancreatic polypeptide (PPY) the glucose response to the buckwheat crackers was not significantly different from the one the scientists observed after the consumption of rice crackers.
  
  What's intriguing, though is that it appears as if these effects were not exclusively fiber-specific. After all, the rice crackers had almost as much fiber as the buckwheat. Moreover, a 2003 study Kawa et al. confirmed that even fiber-free buckwheat extracts exert potent anti-diabetic effects, the researchers ascribed to the presence of d-chiro-inositol in the extracts (Kawa. 2003).

• Anabolic vibes - Vibrate your way to higher testosterone levels (Couto.2013) -- If you still believe vibrators were for women only you got to check out the latest issue of the International Journal of Sports Medicine, in which a group of Brazilian scientists reports that the use of one of those fancy vibration devices (20-Hz and 12-mm) during the lat pulldown induced greater increases in testosterone and lactate concentrations. Dunno if that will also work if you just swipe your girlfriends vibrator and honestly, I don't even want to know that ;-)

• Does the testosterone  and overall hormonal response to workouts even count, or are we still chasing a hormonal ghost? (Schoenfeld. 2013) -- In his latest review of the literature, Brad Schoenfeld who has been busy writing reviews on everything muscle heads are interested in within the last couple of weeks, picks the role of the endocrine response to exercise apart. In that, Schoenfeld points out that it is important to look close before you can tell whether or not a certain "hormone" will effect or even drive skeletal muscle hypertrophy.
  
  

  

  Check out this previous analysis of post-workout anabolism here at the SuppVersity (read more)

  There is for example ample evidence for the involvement of the muscle specific IGF-1 isoform IGF-1Ec, or its locally expressed splice-variant MGF and the presence of high and low responders (cf. West. 2013). Studies using its parent growth hormone, which used injections of the artificially produced recombinant growth hormone are of questionable value, since they lack the natural diversity of "growth hormones" (different GH peptides). Schoenfeld also points out that the evidence that testosterone is anabolic "is inconvertible" (Schoenfeld. 2013) and that the debate would thus have to center around its influence in the vicinity of a workout, where - and this is interesting - we actually know that the effects should occur only after the initial repression of androgen receptors is reversed.
  
  In accordance with what I have pointed out in the Intermittent Thoughts on Building Muscle Series Schoenfeld comes to the conclusion that it would be inappropriate to totally discard the importance of the endocrine response to workouts (IGF-1 & Co, in particular), just because it does not promote the (imho totally overrated) short term protein synthetic response to exercise:

  "Based on limited cellular signaling data, it is conceivable that the primary effect of post-exercise hormonal elevations is to increase satellite cell activity as opposed to mediating acute increases in muscle protein synthesis. If so, this could favor greater long-term increases in muscle hypertrophy without significantly impacting short-term gains." (Schoenfeld. 2013)

  Obviously (and rightly so) Schoenfeld concludes this paragraph of the discussion of this excellent review with the sentence "This hypothesis requires further study." -- And you bet, I will keep an eye on the topic in order to let you know whether the 8% of which West and Phillips say that it's the upper limit of the contribution the transient increases in endocrine hormones have on skeletal muscle hypertrophy (West. 2013) is an over- or underestimation.

• Excess magnesium is good for your testosterone levels, bad for your prostate and could potentially become fatal for your heart (Chandra. 2013) -- According to the latest results from a rodent study, it appears as if an excess intake of magnesium, ingested not as supplement but in form of magnesium sulfate in the chow, can boost testosterone levels by almost 30% (figure 1):

  

  Figure 1: Testosterone  levels prostate weight, luteinizing hormone and serum magnesium levels (all data expressed relative to baseline) after 15 or 29 days on diets with different magnesium content.
  

  The increase in testosterone does yet not come without downsides in the form of slight, but significant increases in prostate size as well as a profound increase in magnesium levels, which would - if they were observed in human beings already mark the early stages of hypermagnesemia. So, as important an adequate amount of magnesium in your diet may be, it should be obvious that 1.5% of the diet or ~350mg/kg magnesium sulfate and thus 35mg elemental magnesium per kilogramm body weight (the HED of the dosage that was administered to the rodents; ) is simply too much - honestly, I am surprised that the rodents did not get chronic diarrhea, anyway ;-)

Since a wise man facebooked me earlier today to keep the SuppVersity posts short on this weekend, spending some time idling around, in order to avoid ending up totally burned out (I wonder if that really was an all altruistic advice of him ;-), I will now do just that - cut it short; yet not without pointing you towards the SuppVersity Facebook Wall, which does - as every day - hold 6-10 new short news for you to read up on.
 

+++ Have a nice weekend, everyone! +++

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